


Numbers

by mosymoseys



Category: Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosymoseys/pseuds/mosymoseys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The number on the whiteboard was wrong, and for the life of him, Lee Adama couldn't figure out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Someone to Watch Over Me".

_39,554._

The number on the whiteboard was wrong, and for the life of him, Lee Adama couldn't figure out why. Hunched over the census report from the inaugural meeting of the new fleet Quorum, he meticulously tallied and re-tallied the individual ship populations.

Each time he got the same total. And each time it was off. Over four hundred more than the number that currently hung on the wall above what was now, for all intents and purposes, his desk.

Frustrated, he stared hard at the report, noting the typical minor fluctuations in ship populations that he'd become so familiar with over the course of the past few months. There'd been four births on the  _Rising Star_ , another two on the  _Hitei Kan_ , but nothing that could possibly account for a sudden gain in more than four hundred souls.

After ten minutes, he was ready to give it up, to call in one of the aides to double-check his math and find the error for him. And then he saw it. Tucked alphabetically between  _Baah Pakal_  and  _Boreas_ :

 _Basestar – 406._

Lee froze. Of course the basestar had been included. Each of the ships' representatives had been required to submit an accurate head-count before the Quorum convened; Sonja would have been no different. It wasn't the whiteboard that was wrong then; it was the census, factoring in the cylon population, that had thrown off the count. Lee slumped back in his chair relieved.

Except, he realized in a flash of unwanted insight, the whiteboard  _was_ wrong. The cylons were a part of the fleet now. Lee himself had made certain of that when he insisted on a seating a baseship representative on the new Quorum. He might not have liked it – he  _didn't_  like it – but he had seen the necessity of it, the importance of genuine cooperation to the long-term survival of the fleet.

And that argument, which he had used so effectively to silence his opponents then, still applied now. If Lee was going to successfully lead a truly unified fleet, he couldn't lead just some or even most of its people. He had to lead them all.

Rising to stand before the whiteboard, Lee reached out towards the number enshrined there and gently yet deliberately smeared away its last three digits. Then, with only the slightest hesitation, he wrote:

 _39,960._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to FanFiction.Net on 6/6/09 as upsidedownbutterfly.


End file.
